THE LIBERTARIAN ENTERPRISENumber 854, January 10, 2016Why are you outraged? Didn't our short-sightedancestors set us up for this kind of thing twoand a half centuries ago when they got rid ofa monarch without getting rid of monarchical practices?.

Putting the Fun into Fundamentalism—A Review of Robert A. Heinlein's Job: A Comedy of Justiceby Jeff Fullertonborn2bewild1962@gmail.com

Attribute to L. Neil Smith'sThe Libertarian Enterprise

Not a bad winter this year.
So far.

Been wanting to write another piece for the Norseman's Diaries but it
will be hard to justify the time and energy—at least until Norseman's
Hell decides to show some more teeth to make such an article
worthwhile. Which it may yet do as while the above normal temperatures
in December going into the new year have helped me greatly by running
out the clock on winter—there are still two more months left of it
and even March can get downright treacherous and nasty.

In the absence of hell of the frozen variety—there still remains the
fiery sort that is sometimes hard to forget in a world taunted by
corruption and war rumors of war. With ISIS and aspirations for an
Islamic bomb and this week: North Korea bragging about testing a
hydrogen bomb! So much for the assumption 20 years ago that the end of
the Cold War would be the end of History or at least the end of
cultural pessimism and the End Times Blues and beginning of a bold new
era in which America was going to cash in on the Peace Dividend and
get serious about reaching for the stars once more.

NOT!

Instead we find ourselves right back where we started from in a
situation reminiscent of Charlie Brown with Lucy and the football. Or
better yet—the protagonist in Robert A. Heinlein's Job: A Comedy of
Justice which I rediscovered as an audio book online. It was one of
my favorites from college days that was also very sacrilegious; doing
with the Judeo-Christian faith what Solomon Rushdie did with Islam in
The Satanic Verses. Only it's actually funny as opposed to Rushdie;
who's novel I could not understand why Muslims would even bother to be
offended with as the story was a crashing bore and not at all funny.

I first read Job in the cusp between college days and enlistment in
the Air Force at a time when the search for productive employment with
a liberal arts degree—English Writing—was about as fruitless as
trying to land a blue collar job in the Rust Belt of the time. It was
also a time of great cultural malaise in the region and internal
turmoil for me as I was being torn between my own religious and
cultural roots and the appealing vision of the High Frontier that
myopic people on both the Left and Right were doing their best then—and
continue quite successfully—to deny us today. Though I am more
into space opera of which Heinlein is among the great masters—his
book; Job: A Comedy of Justice was an enjoyable exercise in lambasting
the dystopic mindset of those who delight in the End times as the
Fallen Angels novel authored by Larry Niven, Michael Flynn and Jerry
Pournelle did for Only One Earth or Earth Only.

And the novel was well timed and even prophetic like one of Heinlein's
other religious themed novels Revolt in 2100 set in a future age of
America under the heel of dictatorship by morally decadent
fundamentalist theocracy that was also easy to remember when the
Reverend Jimmy Swaggart—the man who put the fun back into
fundamentalism—[read an article]—really
put the fun back into it by getting caught with a prostitute
who had the sleazy and scary hard look of a biker mom! That was in
1988 following on the heels of what had been a year of scandal with
other well known television preachers being exposed for major
malfeasance along with the fall of the promising Democratic candidate
Gary Hart and the Iran/ Contra hearings.

There was plenty of schadenfreude to be had in those days as there
naturally is with any failure on the part of institutions revered by
those who would rather stifle freedom and mire us down from a much
more desirable destiny in the stars. Like the greenie weenies and the
Proxmires—the world view of the religious apocalyptic is an equally
depressing scenario. Which was why Job: A Comedy of Justice showing
the lighter side of the End Days makes for such an enjoyable read.

Heinlein's version of Job is based on the biblical namesake involving
a fundamentalist preacher named Alexander Hergenshimer who wakes up on
an alternate Earth in a parallel universe after doing a fire walk in
Polynesia. A world quite different from his own with blatantly
libertine morals where everyone is calling him "Alec Graham" who is
apparently a gangster involved in some sort of money laundering scheme
and an affair with a ravishingly beautiful blonde Danish stewardess
named Margarethe who ends up traveling along with him as more world
changes continue to bounce the couple from one universe to another
where they have to struggle with the issues of finding employment and
understanding and adapting to the changes in social mores while
trekking and hitchhiking their way from Mexico to Kansas where
Alec/Alexander is native. Often starting over from scratch as their
personal belongings (sometimes even their clothing!) along with their
jobs are lost during the process of shifting between worlds and
whatever money they might have accumulated in the previous universe is
usually worthless and can even get them into trouble with the law if
they try to spend it.

It was kind of neat going through the story again after all these
years and having a more comprehensive understanding of the plot and
characters than I did circa 1985 when I first read the original novel.

Mainly because my understanding of things like immigration and many
other issues made it easier to comprehend the situation of Alec and
Margarethe in Mexico where they have to work off their debt owed for
being rescued after a shipwreck that happened after their first world
change as a couple and many other things like the comparative value of
money between different universes where in one everything is
ridiculously inflated and then the next one you can get a steak dinner
for less than $3! And other things that kind of went over my head way
back when as the controversial aspects of religion and utter
blasphemies were the focus on my rebellious anti-religious youth. That
after being raised as a bible thumper when I made that turn in
rebellion against the cultural pessimism prevalent in the Rust Belt
and in the attitudes of family and friends. That has always been the
downside of my beloved Greater Appalachia I ended up forsaking for a
while. I appreciated the significance of William Jennings Bryan who
became President in the 1880s which was the significant point of
divergence that defined the universe of Alexander Hergenshimer.

WJB kind of reflects the values of many democrats I've known who are
religious conservatives and populist at the same time. In the real
world Bryan ran on the slogan of the farmers being crucified on a
cross of gold back in the Gilded Age and later in life he was state
prosecutor for the Scopes "Monkey" Trials in Tennessee where quite a
bit of hell was raised over the teaching of Evolution. I found out his
role in the Scope's Trials only recently and that made me understand
democrats much better. The populist ones tend to be conservative on
moral and religious matters but progressive when it comes to economics
issues, wanting the government to be their shepherd in the absence of
the Lord. And they are anything but liberal. They don't like change
and want to be protected and taken care of at all cost. In a way that
is very rational self interest but the price tag like that of serfdom
or following the Plebeian tyrants of Roman Times is very high and
could very well cost us the stars.

A major theme in the relationship of Alec/Alexander and Margarethe
is the struggle of the protagonist to bring his splendid heroine to a
state of grace. Marga despite her ability to turn heads is a very
loving and loyal wife. But Alec fears for her immortal soul because in
Marga's universe the deities of Norse mythology are worshiped in place
of the monotheistic Judeo-Christian religion—and she seems destined
to the fires of hell. The world changes, both of them have come to
believe might be the meddling of Satan or Loki—the Norse god of fire
and mischief. Perhaps this is a test in the fashion of the trials and
tribulations of the biblical Job and also signs that the end of the
world is near and time is running out for Margarethe.

The audio book version of Heinlein's novel is very well done and made
me realize the best part of the story is Margarethe who is a really
swell gal much like one I happen to know who is also a Teutonic
bombshell and the epitome of swellness! This beautiful smart girl who
is nice as pie—yet worldly—sort of becomes Alec's wife—even though
he's still married to his first wife—Abigail back in his own universe
where he is a fundraiser for CUD—Churches United for Decency. And
it's funny how once he gets to Heaven after being taken up in the
Rapture (and Marga doesn't make it) she is referred to as his
concubine and it's considered ok by the powers that be. And even more
hilarious when Abigail who turns up in Heaven get's thrown out of
Saint Peter's office for being disruptive.

Alec ends up quitting Heaven and going to Hell to look for Margarethe.
The devil turns out to be a cool dude and Hell turns out a rather fun
place with lots of hot babes and hot sex. New arrivals land in the
Lake of Fire but it is said ; they don't stay there. Not for long!
Usually a team breaks their fall with a net before they hit. To this
day because of the zany religious preoccupations of a family member
with mental health issues who considered Greenlick Lake to be the Lake
of Fire—I always visualize Alec coming down into the one down the
road and the greeting party that netted him being stationed atop those
bluffs.

Lake of Fire???

Progress with the audio book is slow because it is long winded and I
have been reading it at work after I clock out at the end of my shifts
to take advantage of the hospital's faster network.

Thursday night I tarried again to listen to more of Job. Got as far as
the entry into heaven after the rapture. Back in the day it was the
sacreligious content that was funny. But this time around it's the
marital spats between Alec & Margarethe that I find even funnier—Alec
being an uptight Bible thumper gets freaked out when his wife wears
short shorts which he deems indecent. And then she asks if he gets an
erection when he looks at her bare legs? Maybe because it reminded me
of a situation a few years ago when another lady friend asked if I
wanted to have phone sex via IM or a text message! Funny as in
outrageous. Some expressions of religious dogma and things said by
crazy people and extreme ideologues fit that category also. Like Ed
Schultz's tirade of wanting to use Dick Cheney's heart as a football.
Or the idea that Greenlick Lake is the "Lake of fire"!

I can't help but laugh at stuff like that. Probably at great risk of
ending up in the Hellfire Club myself. Laughter is one of the most
grievous sins in fundamentalist religious though, as much as it is to
the politically correct McCarthyism of the hard Left. Like outright
blasphemy, laughter is sinful because both camps have little tolerance
for intellectual challenge or being made fun of. Face is everything to
those who embrace orthodoxy. But reacting in knee jerk fashion they
become their own worst enemy. Were it not for the fatwa issued by the
Ayatollah Khomeini or Catholics picketing movie theaters ; Who would
have even heard of The Satanic Verses or the Last Temptation of
Christ? In contrast: Job: A Comedy of Justice never got the notoriety
it truly deserved.

Heinlein's Job is probably the best Devine Comedy since Dante's
Inferno and ought to be made into a movie someday being much funnier
than some of the attempts by Hollywood at the same. Next best thing to
Job is Philip Jose Farmer's novelette The Making of Revelation Part
1 that I read sometime in my military days. I'd give my two front
teeth to read it again as it was very funny with a plot involving
Satan quitting hell and moving to New York where he signs up for
welfare and refuses to play his role in the end time prophesy. So God
resurrects Cecil B. DeMille to go talk to the devil and convince him
to get back on the job—and get it all on film!

I already know the rest of the story with Job but still look forward
to finishing the audio book version as it is very entertaining. Will
likely do that by time this article goes into publication.

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